Van Uffel was a wealthy Flemish merchant who lived in Venice, where Van Dyck probably painted this portrait early in his Italian period (1621–27). In another portrait (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brauschweig), Van Dyck shows the same sitter authoritatively posed before a view of ships sailing off a Mediterranean coast. Ours, by contrast, shows Van Uffel as a learned gentleman, with signs of his varied interests: dividers, a recorder, the bow of a viola da gamba, an antique head, a drawing, and a celestial globe.

Catalogue Entry

Lucas van Uffel was a wealthy Flemish merchant and shipowner who lived in Venice and formed a major collection of Italian and Northern European paintings. The year and place of Van Uffel’s birth are not known; his father settled in Amsterdam by 1591 and Lucas was in Venice by 1616. Working with other members of his family in the Mediterranean trade, Van Uffel became prosperous enough to attract the envy and extortion of the Venetian authorities. In the mid-1630s he moved to Amsterdam, taking with him paintings by Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Van Dyck, Ribera, Reni, Guercino, Poussin, Claude, and others. After his death in 1637 his collection was auctioned in that year and in 1639. The later sale included Raphael’s Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, of about 1514–15 (Musée du Louvre, Paris), which influenced Rembrandt in a number of portraits of himself and of acquaintances. Two examples in the Museum’s own collection are Herman Doomer (29.100.1), of 1640, and Man with a Magnifying Glass (14.40.621), of the early 1660s.

Van Dyck must have painted this portrait of Van Uffel and the one in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig, in Venice about 1622, when he was eagerly searching the city for pictures by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese (as recorded in his "Italian Sketchbook" in the British Museum, London). The Braunschweig canvas shows Van Uffel posing authoritatively before a view of ships near an Italianate coast, in reference to his profession. In the Museum’s painting, by contrast, Van Uffel appears active and almost impatient, as the viewer briefly distracts him from his learning and pursuit of the arts. The antique head, the drawing of it (apparently), the flute, and the bow of a viola da gamba indicate the sitter’s interest in the fine arts and music, while the celestial globe suggests a knowledge of astronomy and navigation. The dividers may refer to geography as well as astronomy. In creating such dynamic evocations of individual character, in this portrait and others like it (for example, George Gage and Two Attendants of 1622–23, in the National Gallery, London), Van Dyck assumed a key role in a tradition extending from the Late Renaissance (with portraits by Titian, Lorenzo Lotto, and other North Italians) to artists of the next two centuries.

[2012]

Provenance

Landgrafen von Hesse-Kassel (possibly by 1730; definitely by 1738; cat., 1783, no. 69); seized by Napoleon's troops in 1806 and sent to Empress Josephine in Mainz and possibly then to Malmaison; [dealer, Paris, 1836]; George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland, Stafford House, London (1836–d. 1861); George Granville William Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 3rd Duke of Sutherland (1861–d. 1892); Cromertie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland (from 1892; cat., 1910, vol. 2, no. 47); [Duveen, London and New York, by 1908–9; sold to Altman]; Benjamin Altman, New York (1909–d. 1913)

Exhibition History

London. British Institution. June 1845, no. 13 (as "Portrait," lent by the Duke of Sutherland, possibly this picture).

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," 1875, no. 141 (as "Portrait of an Artist," lent by the Duke of Sutherland).

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," 1890, no. 146 (lent by the Duke of Sutherland).

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Exhibition of Works by Van Dyck," January 1–March 10, 1900, no. 7 (lent by the Duke of Sutherland).

John Smith. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. Vol. 3, London, 1831, p. 230, no. 825, as a portrait of a gentleman by Van Dyck, and engraved in mezzotint by Vaillant.

John Smith. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. Vol. 9, Supplement. London, 1842, p. 373, no. 21, as formerly in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie, then at a Paris dealer's in 1836, and purchased by the Duke of Sutherland in 1837 for £440.

Introduction by Walter A. Liedtke inFlemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America. Antwerp, 1992, pp. 24, 250–53 no. 79, ill. in color (overall and detail).